The Vortex Blaster

by Edward E Smith

  “Fair enough. But we proved our point, which was what we were primarily interested in, anyway. What’ll we do with the rest of the day, Joan—go back to the ship?”

  “Uh-uh, This is the most comfortable place I’ve found since we left Tellus, and if I don’t see the ship again for a week it’ll be at least a week too soon. Why don’t you send a boy out with enough money to get us a chess kit? We can engage this room for the rest of the day and work on our game.”

  “No need for that—we have all such things here,” the host said quickly. “I’ll send for them at once.”

  “No no—no money, please,” the manager said. “I am still in your debt, and as long as you will stay you are my guests…” he paused, then went on in a strangely altered tone: “But chess…and Janowick… Joan Janowick, not at all a common name…surely not Past Grand Master Janowick? She—retired—would be a much older woman.”

  “The same—I retired for lack of time, but I still play as much as I can. I’m flattered that you have heard of me.” Joan smiled as though she were making a new and charming acquaintance. “And you? I’m sorry we didn’t introduce ourselves earlier.”

  “Permit me to introduce Host Althagar, assistant manager. I am called Thlasoval.”

  “Oh, I know of you, Master Thlasoval. I followed your game with Rengodon of Centralia. Your knight-and-bishop end game was a really beautiful thing.”

  “Thank you. I am really flattered that you have heard of me. But Commander Cloud…?”

  “No, you haven’t heard of him. Perhaps you never will, but believe me, if he had time for tournament play he’d be high on the Grand Masters’ list. So far on this cruise he’s won one game, I’ve won one, and we’re on the eighty fourth move of the third.”

  The paraphernalia arrived and the Tellurians set the game up rapidly and unerringly, each knowing exactly where each piece and pawn belonged.

  “You have each lost two pawns, one knight, and one bishop—in eighty three moves?” Thlasoval marveled.

  “Right,” Cloud said. “We’re playing for blood. Across this board friendship ceases; and, when dealing with such a pure unadulterated tiger as she is, so does chivalry.”

  “If I’m a tiger, I’d hate to say what he is.” Joan glanced up with a grin. “Just study the board, Master Thlasoval, and see for yourself who is doing what to whom. I’m just barely holding him: he’s had me on the defensive for the last forty moves. Attacking him is just like trying to beat in the side of a battleship with your bare fist. Do you see his strategy? Perhaps not, on such short notice.”

  Joan was very willing to talk chess at length, because the fact that Fairchild’s Chickladorian manager was a chess Master was an essential part of the Patrol’s plan.

  “No… I can’t say that I do.”

  “You notice he’s concentrating everything he can bring to bear on my left flank. Fifteen moves from now he’d’ve been focused on my King’s Knight’s Third. Three moves after that he was going to exchange his knight for my queen and then mate in four. But, finding out what he was up to, I’ve just derailed his train of operations and he has to revise his whole campaign.”

  “No wonder I didn’t see… I’m simply not in your class. But would you mind if I stay and look on?”

  “We’ll be glad to have you, but it won’t be fast. We’re playing strict tournament rules and taking the full four minutes for each move.”

  “That’s quite all right. I really enjoy watching Grand Masters at work.”

  Master though he was, Thlasoval had no idea at all of what a terrific game he watched. For Joan Janowick and Neal Cloud were not playing it; they merely moved the pieces. The game had been played long since. Based upon the greatest games of the greatest masters of old, it had been worked out, move by move, by chess masters working with high-speed computers.

  Thus, while Joan and Storm were really concentrating, it was not upon chess.

  Chapter XIV

  VESTA THE GAMBLER

  JOAN WAS HANDLING the card games, Cloud the wheels. The suggestion that it would be smart to run honest games had been implanted in the zwilniks’ minds, not because of the cards, but because of the wheels; for a loaded, braked, and magnetized wheel is a very tough device to beat.

  Joan, then, would read a deck of cards, and a Lensman or a Rigellian would watch her do it. Then the observing telepath would, all imperceptibly, insert hunches into the mind of a player. And what gambler has ever questioned his hunches, especially when they pay off time after time after time? Thus more and more players began to win with greater or lesser regularity and the gambling fever—the most contagious and infectious disorder known to man—spread throughout the vast room like a conflagration in a box-factory.

  And Storm Cloud was handling the wheels.

  “Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, before the ball enters Zone Green,” the croupiers intoned. “The screens go up, no bets can be placed while the ball is in the Green.”

  If the wheels had not been rigged, Cloud could have computed with ease the exact number upon which each ball would come to rest. In such case the Patrol forces would not, of course, have given Vesta the Vegian complete or accurate information. With her temperament and her bank-roll, she would have put the place out of business in an hour; and such a single-handed killing was not at all what the Patrol desired.

  But the wheels, of course, were rigged. Cloud was being informed, however, of every pertinent fact. He knew the exact point at which the ball crossed the green borderline. He knew its exact velocity. He knew precisely the strengths of the magnetic fields and the permeabilities, reluctances, and so on, of all the materials involved. He knew just about how much braking force could be applied without tipping off the players and transforming them instantly into a blood-thirsty mob. And finally, he was backed by Lensmen who could at need interfere with the physical processes of the croupiers without any knowledge on the part of the victims.

  Hence Cloud did well enough—and when a house is paying thirty five to one on odds that have been cut down to eight or ten to one, it is very, very bad for the house.

  Vesta started playing conservatively enough. She went from wheel to wheel, tail high in air and purring happily to herself, slapping down ten-credit notes until she won.

  “This is the wheel I like!” she exclaimed, and went to twenties. Still unperturbed, still gay, she watched nine of them move away under the croupier’s rake. Then she won again.

  Then fifties. Then hundreds. She wasn’t gay now, nor purring. She wasn’t exactly tense yet, but she was warming up. As the tenth C-note disappeared, a Chickladorian beside her said:

  “Why don’t you play the colors, miss? Or combinations? You don’t lose so much that way.”

  “No, and you don’t win so much, either. When I’m gambling I gamble, brother…and wait just a minute…” the croupier paid her three M’s and an L…“See what I mean?”

  The crowd was going not-so-slowly mad. Assistant Manager Althagar did what he could. He ordered all rigging and gimmicks off, and the house still lost. On again, off again; and losses still skyrocketed. Then, hurrying over to the door of a private room, he knocked lightly, opened the door, and beckoned to Thlasoval.

  “All hell’s out for noon!” he whispered intensely as the manager reached the doorway. “The crowd’s winning like crazy—everybody’s winning! D’you s’pose it’s them damn Patrolmen there crossing us up—and how in hell could it be?”

  “Have you tried cutting out the gimmicks?”

  “Yes. No difference.”

  “It can’t be them, then. It couldn’t be anyway, for two reasons. The kind of brains it takes to work that kind of problems in your head can’t happen once in a hundred million times, and you say everybody’s doing it. They can’t be, dammit! Two, they’re Grand Masters playing chess. You play chess yourself.”

  “You know I do. I’m not a Master, but I’m pretty good.”

  “Good enough to tell by looking at ’em that they don’t
give a damn about what’s going on out there. Come on in.”

  “We’ll disturb ’em and they’ll be sore as hell.”

  “You couldn’t disturb these two, short of yelling in their ear or joggling the board.” The two walked toward the table. “See what I mean?”

  The two players, forearms on table, were sitting rigidly still, staring as though entranced at the board, neither moving so much as an eye. As the two Chickladorians watched, Cloud’s left forearm, pivoting on the elbow, swung out and he moved his knight.

  “Oh, no…no!” Shocked out of silence, Thlasoval muttered the words under his breath. “Your queen, man—your queen!”

  But this opportunity, so evident to the observer, did not seem at all attractive to the woman, who sat motionless for minute after minute.

  “But come on, boss, and look this mess over,” the assistant urged. “You’re on plus time now.”

  “I suppose so.” They turned away from the enigma. “But why didn’t she take his queen? I couldn’t see a thing to keep her from doing it. I would have.”

  “So would I. However, almost all the pieces on that board are vulnerable, some way or other. Probably whichever one starts the shin-kicking will come out at the little end of the horn.”

  “Could be, but it won’t be kicking shins. It’ll be slaughter—and how I’d like to be there when the slaughter starts! And I still don’t see why she didn’t grab that queen…”

  “Well, you can ask her, maybe, when they leave. But right now you’d better forget chess and take a good, long gander at what that Vegian hell-cat is doing. She’s wilder than a Radelgian cateagle and hotter than a DeLameter. She’s gone just completely nuts.”

  Tense, strained, taut as a violin-string in every visible muscle, Vesta stood at a wheel; gripping the ledge of the table so fiercely that enamel was flaking off the metal and plastic under her stiff, sharp nails. Jaws hard set and eyes almost invisible slits, she growled deep in her throat at every bet she put down. And those bets were all alike—ten thousand credits each—and she was still playing the numbers straight. They watched her lose eighty thousand credits; then watched her collect three hundred and fifty thousand.

  Thlasoval made the rounds, then; did everything he could to impede the outward flow of cash, finding that there wasn’t much of anything he could do. He beckoned his assistant.

  “This is bad, Althagar, believe me,” he said. “And I simply can’t figure any part of it…unless…” His voice died away.

  “You said it. I can’t, either. Unless it’s them two chess-players in there, and I’ll buy it that it ain’t, I haven’t even got a guess…unless there could be some Lensmen mixed up in it somewhere. They could do just about anything.”

  “Lensmen? Rocket-juice! There aren’t any—we spy-ray everybody that comes in.”

  “Outside, maybe, peeking in. Or some other snoopers, maybe, somewhere?”

  “I can’t see it. We’ve had Lensmen in here dozens of times, for one reason or another, business and social both, and they’ve always shot straight pool. Besides, all they’re getting is money, and what in all eleven hells of Telemanchia would the Patrol want of our money? If they wanted us for anything they’d come and get us, but they wouldn’t give a cockeyed linker’s damn for our money. They’ve already got all the money there is!”

  “That’s so, too. Money…hm, money in gobs and slathers… Oh, you think…the Mob? D’ya s’pose it’s got so big for its britches it thinks it can take us on?”

  “I wouldn’t think they could be that silly. It’s a lot more reasonable, though, than that the Patrol would be horsing around this way.”

  “But how? Great Kalastho, how?”

  “How do I know? Snoopers, as you said—or perceivers, or any other ringers they could ring in on us.”

  “Nuts!” the assistant retorted. “Just who do you figure as ringers? The Vegian isn’t a snooper, she’s just a gambling fool. No Chickladorian was ever a snooper, or a perceiver either, and these people are just about all regular customers. And everybody’s winning. So just where does that put you?”

  “Up the creek—I know. But dammit, there’s got to be snoopery or some other funny stuff somewhere in this!”

  “Uh-uh. Did you ever hear of a perceiver who could read a deck or spot a gimmick from half a block away?”

  “No, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. But what stops me is what can we do about it? If the Mob is forted up in that hotel across the street or somewhere beside or behind us…there isn’t a damn thing we can do. They’d have more gunnies than we could send in, even if we knew exactly where they were, and we can’t send a young army barging around without anything but a flimsy suspicion to go on—the lawmen would throw us in the clink in nothing flat… Besides, this Mob idea isn’t exactly solid, either. How’d they get their cut from all these people? Especially the Vegian?”

  “The Vegian, probably not; the rest, probably so. They could have passed the word around that this is the big day. Anybody’d split fifty-fifty on a cold sure thing.”

  “Uh-uh. I won’t buy that, either. I’d’ve known about it—somebody would have leaked. No matter how you figure it, it doesn’t add up.”

  “Well, then?”

  “Only one thing we can do. Close down. While you’re doing that I’ll go shoot in a Class A Double Prime Urgent to top brass.”

  Hence Vesta’s croupier soon announced to his clientele that all betting was off, at least until the following day. All guests would please leave the building as soon as possible.

  For a couple of minutes Vesta simply could not take in the import of the announcement. She was stunned. Then:

  “Whee…yow…ow…erow!” she yowled, at the top of her not inconsiderable voice. “I’ve won… I’ve won… I’VE WON!” She quieted down a little, still shell-shocked, then looked around and ran toward the nearest familiar face, which was that of the assistant manager. “Oh, senor Althagar, do you actually want me to quit while I’m ahead? Why, I never heard of such a thing—it certainly never happened to me before! And I’m going to stop gambling entirely—I’ll never get such a thrill as this again if I live a million years!”

  “You’re so right, Miss Vesta—you never will.” Althagar smiled—as though he had just eaten three lemons without sugar, to be sure, but it was still a smile. “It’s not that we want you to quit, but simply that we can’t pay any more losses. Right now I am most powerfully psychic, so take my advice, my dear, and stop.”

  “I’m going to—honestly, I am.” Vesta straightened out the thick sheaf of bills she held in her right hand, noticing that they were all ten-thousands. She dug around in her bulging pouch; had to dig halfway to the bottom before she could find anything smaller. With a startled gasp she crammed the handful of bills in on top of the others and managed, just barely, to close and lock the pouch. “Oh, I’ve got to fly—I must find my boss and tell him all about this!”

  “Would you like an armed escort to your hotel?”

  “That won’t be necessary, thanks. I’m going to take a copter direct to the ship.”

  And she did.

  It was not until the crowd was almost all gone that either Thlasoval or Althagar even thought of the two chess-players. Then one signalled the other and they went together to the private room, into it, and up to the chess-table. To the casual eye, neither player had moved. The board, too, showed comparatively little change; at least, the carnage anticipated by Thlasoval had not materialized.

  Althagar coughed discreetly; then again, a little louder. “Sir and madam, please…” he began.

  “I told you they’d be dead to the world,” Thlasoval said; and, bending over, lifted one side of the board. Oh, very gently, and not nearly enough to dislodge any one of the pieces, but the tiny action produced disproportionately large results. Both players started as though a bomb had exploded beside them, and Joan uttered a half-stifled scream. With visible efforts, they brought themselves down from the heights to the there and the then.
Cloud stretched prodigiously; and Joan, emulating him, had to bring one hand down to cover a jaw-cracking yawn.

  “Excuse me, Grand Master Janowick and Commander Cloud, but the Club is being closed for repairs and we must ask you to leave the building.”

  “Closed?” Joan parroted, stupidly, and:

  “For repairs?” Cloud added, with equal brilliance.

  “Closed. For repairs.” Thlasoval repeated, firmly. Then, seeing that his guests were coming back to life quite nicely, he offered Joan his arm and started for the door.

  “Oh, yes. Grand Master Janowick,” he said en route. “May I ask why you refused the Commander’s queen?”

  “He would have gained such an advantage in position as to mate in twelve moves.”

  “I see…thanks.” He didn’t, at all, but he had to say something. “I wonder…would it be possible for me to find out how this game comes out?”

  “Why, I suppose so.” Joan thought for a moment. “Certainly. If you’ll give me your card I’ll send you a tape of it after we finish.”3

  The two Patrolmen boarded a ’copter. Joan looked subdued, almost forlorn. Cloud took her hand and squeezed it gently.

  “Don’t take it so hard, Joan,” he thought. He found it remarkably easy to send to her now; in fact, telepathy was easier and simpler and more natural than talking. “We had it to do.”

  “I suppose so; but it was a dirty, slimy, stinking, filthy trick, Storm. I’m ashamed… I feel soiled.”

  “I know how you feel. I’m not so happy about the thing, either. But when you think of thionite, and what that stuff means…?”

  “That’s true, of course…and they stole the money in the first place… Not that two wrongs, or even three or four, make a right… But it does help.”

  She cheered up a little, but she was not yet her usual self when they boarded the Vortex Blaster II.

  Vesta met them just inside the lock. “Oh, chief, I won—I won!” she shrieked, tail waving frantically in air. “Where’d you go after the club closed? I looked all over for you—do you know how much I won, Captain Nealcloud?”